I learn that as long ago as 1872, before there was any perceptible fall in the birth-rate to consider, an article by Mr Montagu Crackenthorpe, Q.C., appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_, contending that small families were a sign of progress rather than of retrogression. This article was recently republished in a book entitled _Population and Progress_. There are many other books on the subject, and to them I must refer those of my readers who desire further knowledge of this very important problem. I have no space for an exhaustive consideration of it here. It is a subject essentially considered by the majority from a narrow, personal point of view, for it is impossible to expect people struggling for existence to ‘think imperially,’ and put the needs of the Empire before the limitations of their income. The question from the economic standpoint has been exhaustively dealt with by that master of political economy, Mr Sidney Webb in a pamphlet entitled _The Decline of the Birth Rate_, published by the Fabian Society at 1d. * * * I wish I could convince people, however, of the mistake of having only one child. The loss to the parents is heavy and to the child incalculable. All parents who have tried it know what disadvantages they experience in their early attempts at training, when there is ‘no one to play with,’ and no one to give up to--perhaps the most important of life’s lessons. Two or more children growing up together are twice as easy to manage and to teach as is one alone, and infinitely happier in every way. Later on, schoolfellows to a certain extent supply the deficiency, but the only child is still no less an object for commiseration, as are his parents. All their hopes are centred in the one, and, as the circumstances almost inevitably combine to spoil the one, their hopes are more or less handicapped. Parents find out too late that they have made a mistake. I was at a children’s party not long ago where ‘sole hopes’ were greatly in the majority. A lovely little family trio consisting of a boy and two tiny girls was much admired and the mother openly envied. Several of the mothers present said they often wished that Joan or Tommy had a brother or sister. As few of the children mentioned were over five, the difficulty did not seem insuperable, but opinions were unanimous among the ladies that it was ‘too late to start the nursery again’; ‘it was no good unless the two could grow up together, five years was too great a gap,’ and so on. No doubt they will one day bitterly regret their timidity, as many women to my personal knowledge have already done. Joan or Tommy may be taken from them, or what is worse may turn out unloving and undutiful, and in that sad day they will have no other children to turn to.